General Music Chat

But the good part was our board rack was only 10 ft from the back of our trailer. All of our equipment is on wheels so if its flat its no problem.

Speaking of wheels, stairs, and simplifying gear...anyone got any ideas how to make everything easier to transport for disabled people. No heavy lifting?

Yes....they're called "Roadies"

Stairs suck! There are two venues here that had horrible stairs, Griff's Grill (now closed) and 313jac.

Pea gravel, eh? We did a benefit for a local radio station years ago. When we arrived we were told we would be playing outside by a softball game. The stage was a piece of plywood! Another time we did an outside gig and they set sheets of plywood on top of picnic tables for a stage.

We were directed to a grassy spot by the lake when we asked where the stage was. Before the end of the night there were + or - 600 people on the hill in front of us.
I no longer care what the stage looks like.

Mike I would just try to get eveything on a good set of wheels and have a dolly. Saves my butt big time, my trailer has a ramp so most of the time its jsut a matter of pushing the equipment where ever it needs to be. The only real picking up I have to do is putting the mains on top of the subs. Otherwise you just have to get some good friends to help.

When I sit in with people these days a lot of time I just take my Line 6 Pod preamp and pedal and jsut put it straight into the board. i took this unit and plugged it into our pa at my house one time and eqed it for a pa system and i havent touched it. We did a few gigs where me and the bassist just plugged into the board. So if you are doing gigs where the pa is supplied you can carry everything in in one trip. I love amps but there are situations where you really dont need them. Just make sure you have the tones you want tweaked into whatever your using in advance so you arent monkeying thru menus and stuff at the gig.

Wheels ! Yes ! I like the removable type.
I have purchased several pairs along with bigger feet and installed on some of our heavier equipment. Really helps.

I want to get one of those large steel Craftsman wheeled tool chests to carry all the "handy" items, mics, cables, tools, ETC.

Right now all that stuff is loaded into two big hard plastic cases that double as speaker stands for the three way mains.

George we have a huge box with two lower compartments made of wood. One compartment we leave the snake and all extra extension cords in, the other side has all the speaker cord. there are two form fitting trays in the top one holds all the mic cords and the other is just some misc stuff. We have an old padded mic case that weve had for 25 years, all the mics go in there. The guy that built this case put some rollers on there but they werent heavy enough and would bind so I found some bigger wheels, I think they are 4 inchs and will support up to 1000 lbs. This past weekend I rolled this case over grass by myself.

I like leaving the wheels on everything, even my guitar cab I just leave them on there. We have a pretty sizeable PA system but sat night we tore down it, lights, and were ready to go in about 40 minutes. The guys I play with have certain things that each of us does, having the seperate compartments in the case allows each person to load certain things without running over each other.

Another thing about wheels. If you have large boxes get the type that have locks. I have a certain order that I load everything and I even have duct tape with instructions which end goes in and which goes out. The cases with wheels have locks on one side and when the boxes go in right you just lock them in as they go into the trailer.

Our speaker cabs dont have wheels, but I have a dolly for them.

Good Luck

O to me when you look at your equipment try to make everything as easy to carry as possible. A dolly for speaker cabs is a bare minumum to me, it will save your back. Try to have a standard order to packing and unpacking. Weve done it so many times that we can do it DRUNK! That can be inportant at times if you are in a rockin band! LOL

Good tips JW. Each set up is a teaching affair with some of the guys. Others have their part down.

I have a hard side double rifle case that all the mics and mic cables go in.

Works well, but I get some looks when I walk in with it. LOL.

I did get an idea.

Found portable wheelchair ramps on ebay. Useful to get wheeled items up on stage or steps.

That is a god idea. I'll have to look into that have some friends whom work in DME. ( durable medical equipment )